Threat to gun rights of accepting illegal immigrants largely ignored

Rally making demands not to deport illegal immigrants and to "reform" U.S. laws to accomodate those who broke them.

Photo by David McNew/Getty Images

“These are young people, just families coming across. They're not armed. They're not carrying weapons,” Texas State Senator Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa protested about Gov. Rick Perry’s deployment of 1,000 National Guard troops to the Rio Grand Valley in response to a ramping up of illegal border crossings.

Many, no doubt, are nonviolent. Some are victims of greedy coyotes, vicious criminals, merciless conditions, and disease. But not all are the innocents Hinojosa paints them to be.

"The media would have you believe that the whole crisis on the border is exclusively about unaccompanied children," Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst observed. “It is not just about unaccompanied children -- unaccompanied children represent but a tiny fraction of the illegals who cross our border every day, according to the Border Patrol. We've seen estimates that at least a quarter of those apprehended have criminal records."

So why is it ardent amnesty promoters, like Democrat Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, are attacking those who call for what should be a no-brainer? He’s furious that some expect a criminal background check on intercepted aliens as a matter of course, calling that “exploiting and demonizing children to score political points.”

The fact is, by violating immigration laws, the foreign nationals have already committed criminal acts and shown a propensity to ignore U.S. laws that stand between them and what they want. And some of the children, the "vicious" demonic ones, deserve to be demonized and exorcized back to the hell they came from, rather than “resettled.”

Mandatory universal background checks to obtain a gun are among the current demands by those who insist the government does not have enough information and impose enough control and restrictions on U.S. citizens. The theory, unfounded, of course (and an obvious precursor to registration), is that conducting them will reduce violent crime. Still, if one is to credit backers of such measures with being sincere, it makes little sense to demand background checks in one case, but to not only turn a blind eye, but to attack people for advocating doing them on the intentionally undocumented.

So why haven’t the “gun safety” groups joined in demanding background checks on illegal aliens, particularly with well-documented tie-ins to increases in crimes

One answer is an explosion of violent cartel/gang activity will be good for business, creating many more blood-dancing opportunities, the kind candid anti-gunners admit they’re counting on exploiting. The other is that what they’re really about is politics, not safety. The most credible recent data available indicates that if and when immigrants are given amnesty and become eligible for citizenship, they will vote overwhelmingly Democrat. Then consider no less an administration higher-up than Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has said the approximately 11 million people who previously entered the country illegally have “earned the right to be citizens.” And unsurprisingly, the aforementioned Rep. Gutiérrez “bragged about working with President Barack Obama and ... Johnson to get as many as 5 million illegal immigrants amnesty using executive action and Mr. Obama's ‘prosecutorial discretion.’"

Why the “gun control” groups keep quiet about illegal immigration is understandable. Those in it for the long haul, who hope and believe Americans can be disarmed within a generation, recognize that this can give them an unbeatable political majority within a decade or two, to remake the legislatures and courts and reverse all the legislative and judicial victories gained to date.

That explains motives of the gun-grabbers. But what about gun rights organizations? Why has only one national group sounded the alarm?

With Gun Owners of America having properly identified the political threat, and having then encountered no small amount of desperate Bloomberg flak because of it, it’s fair to ask why the big dog has stayed out of the fight. Falling back on the “single issue” mantra is hardly credible in light of concerns restated here, especially when precedent was set when the National Rifle Association (quite properly) fought so-called “campaign finance reform” as a significant tangential threat to effective Second Amendment representation.

If NRA is not even going to acknowledge the illegal immigration issue, let alone take a lead on it, politically active members deserve more than being waved off and ignored. A statement as to why they don’t believe it’s relevant to make a candidate’s position on immigration a part of how they are graded would be more responsive and instructive. If a politician appears to be on the side of gun owners based strictly on pure gun votes, but is simultaneously supporting immigration policies that will have the effect of selling them out in the long run, that would seem to be relevant and worth knowing. Especially before giving or returning him to political power. And if NRA has compelling but undisclosed reasons why that should not be a concern, sharing them is not an unreasonable expectation.

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David Codrea is a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He is a field editor for GUNS Magazine, and a blogger at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance. Email him at dcodreaAThotmailDOTcom.